


Such A Simple Thing

by RiatheMai



Category: Original Work
Genre: Brothers, Drug Use, Fantasy, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Manipulation, Original Fiction, Sex Magic, Sexual Coercion, Touching
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-14
Updated: 2013-07-14
Packaged: 2017-12-20 03:53:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,769
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/882639
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RiatheMai/pseuds/RiatheMai
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Arin knew Zei was special the first time he laid eyes on him, and not just because he was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen.  Zei only knew he was different, and maybe Arin would be better off if he didn’t try to help him.  Ten years later, they’ve become like brothers, bound by an oath and a bond that runs so much deeper than blood.  But the truth is now revealed: who and what Zei really is.  When they are captured by a sorceress, Arin is forced to make a choice that could destroy the bond they share forever. Either he agree to take what she wants from Zei, or he watch as she sends someone else to do it.  Arin knows there was nothing he wouldn’t do for his chosen brother.  Now, he just has to convince Zei that nothing between them has changed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Such A Simple Thing

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this story about ten years ago, using characters from another, much larger story I had started years before that. While the relationship between the characters in the larger story was fraternal only, they really were prime yaoi material. I simply couldn't resist. This story is written to stand on it's own. It contains coerced sexual activity between two men but no intercourse. If this bothers you, please do not read.

 

~~~~~<@>~~~~~

 

Arin awoke with his head pounding and his mouth tasting of the metal tang of blood.  He was on his back on something hard and cold like cement or firmly packed dirt and he lay there as though he’d been tossed aside with all the carelessness one would use to discard an old rag.  Without moving too much, he took a quick inventory of his injures.  Nothing was broken, near as he could tell, and although the back of his head felt like pulp, he didn’t think he had worse than a mild concussion and maybe a bit cheek.

 

He slowly pushed himself upright, wincing at the building pulse behind his eyes—oh yeah, definitely a concussion—and looked around.  The room was dark except for a small cone of light, which surrounded him where he sat.  The walls were completely lost in the darkness that existed beyond the meager wash of illumination.  He couldn’t tell how large or how small the room actually was, its shape or even its style, but every instinct inside him screamed cell.  He couldn’t tell either, whether or not there were any doors through which he’d entered and therefore through which he might hope to escape.

 

“Escape is not an option open to you,” a strange, feminine voice echoed around him.  He couldn’t tell from where it originated, from how far away or from what direction.  “And neither is speech.”

 

_What?_ he tried to ask, but then he knew.  No sound left his lips, though he knew he’d said something.  He’d felt it in his throat, not like a whisper, but as if he’d spoken aloud.  The sound was simply swallowed up before it could be heard.

 

Panic welled within him and brought him to his feet.  That useless emotion was quickly replaced by others that were equally as ineffectual and yet, impossible to restrain; anger—that he should be detained and silenced against his will—and fear—for the one who had been with him when he’d been abducted and who wasn’t now.

 

_Where is my brother?_ he screamed, but it was no use.  He might as well have been thinking for all the sound he’d made.

 

Suddenly light flared behind him, bright and strange.  He spun around, blinking his eyes against the harsh glare, then cried out silently at what he saw centered in the glow.  His brother was chained to the wall, not ten feet from where he stood.  His arms were stretched out to either side of his torso and held at the wrist by heavy iron manacles, and his leg were slightly spread apart and held at the ankles in kind.  His head hung forward, his face hidden by his sweat soaked hair.

 

Although Arin was still dressed in the same clothes he’d been wearing when they’d been taken, his brother was not.  The black shirt and pants, Zei had been wearing, had been replaced by only a loose pair of white trousers.  His chest and his feet were bare.  The room was not warm by any means, yet every inch of exposed skin on Zei’s body glistened in the light, covered with a fine sheen of sweat.

 

He seemed unconscious, even though he stood erect with no strain on the binds holding his wrists.  The simple fact that he was bound and wasn’t struggling desperately to free himself, all reason and coherency squelched beneath the weight of his severe claustrophobia, told Arin that he had to be unconscious.  That or sedated clear out of his head.  Arin was almost relieved.  He knew that the damage Zei would do to himself in his hysteria would be worse than anything they could do to him—whoever they were—simply because he’d be too far gone to notice.

 

Arin took a step towards him, expecting to be cut down or stopped in some way.  When nothing rose up to restrict him, he broke into a run. 

 

And slammed into an invisible wall within arm’s reach of his brother.

 

Arin shook his head, stunned, then reached out his hands, laying them against the barrier.  All logic said that there was nothing there, nothing beneath his touch, yet as he slid his hands along the surface of what wasn’t there he came to the slow realization that there was no way through or around it.

 

_Zei!_ he yelled uselessly, slamming his fists into the wall separating them.  The impact made no sound for all that his hands felt like he was pounding on cement.  On the other side, Zei never moved, unable to hear him or unable to respond even if he had heard him.  _What have you done to him?_

 

As Arin had suspected, and although he, himself, couldn’t hear his own voice, his jailer could.  Her laughter swept across the room like the throaty rumble of distant thunder across an empty valley. 

 

“Awaken, my sweet.”

 

At her command, Zei’s head moved, then lifted, his eyes slowly drifting open and staring forward.  Then he blinked, seeming to wake from a trance.  Dazed, he looked around, not quite aware that he was restrained, or even someplace sinister.  The focus of his coal black eyes was shallow.  His gaze passed over Arin as though he wasn’t even there as the reality of his predicament began to sink in.  The path his eyes took grew more erratic as he slowly—but with increasing determination—tugged at the binds holding his wrists.

 

“Where am I?” Zei asked and Arin gasped in surprise.  Apparently whatever it was that was stifling Arin’s own speech was having no effect on Zei.  “Arin?  Are you dhere?” 

 

The fear in his soft voice pierced Arin to the quick.  As Zei’s eyes continued to sweep over him without a shred of acknowledgment, Arin realized the worst.  _He can’t see anything.  They’ve blinded him!_

 

“Temporarily, I assure you,” the woman said.

 

Zei’s head snapped up at the sound of her voice.  “Who are you?  Where’s Arin?  What ‘ave you done to ‘im?  Arin!”  Frantically, Zei pulled at the binds holding his wrists, unfazed as a small trickle of blood ran down his left arm.  “Where is ‘e?”

 

Arin pounded on the invisible shield, trying desperately to force a reply to his brother’s frightened cries past the restriction in his larynx. 

 

“Easy, my sweet,” the woman crooned.  Arin wasn’t sure to whom she’d been speaking and he didn’t care.  Zei didn’t either, assuming that he’d even heard her over his own voice.

 

Zei’s black hair stirred and the thin fabric of his pants billowed as though a breeze blew through the room.  Arin felt nothing but Zei gasped, startled.  His eyes went wide for a moment and then his body tightened; his back arching and his eyes rolling closed.  His head fell back against the wall behind him as a small, anguished sob—or was it a moan—slipped passed his throat.  It was wrought with feeling, but Arin couldn’t tell if he was experiencing profound pain, fear, or something else entirely.

 

_Leave him alone!_   Arin hammered at the wall until his hands throbbed.  The breeze subsided as abruptly as it had begun and Zei slumped forward with a pathetic sob.  _Let me go to him, please_ , Arin pleaded.  He knew, now, that she could hear him even if he couldn’t.  Not that he thought for a moment that she would care.  _Please!  Let me let him know that I’m all right._   She only laughed.  _What do you want with us?_

 

Her laughter stopped abruptly and both Arin and Zei froze where they stood, both breathing heavily—Zei in exhaustion and Arin in fury.  “There is something that I want from you,” she said in a patronizingly sweet voice.  Again that strange breeze stirred Zei’s hair and his flimsy trousers and again he went rigid, his eyes squeezed shut and his jaw clenched.  “But you are being very difficult, my sweet.  And very foolish.”

 

“I won’ give you anyt’ing,” Zei said, his voice trembling.  ‘I’d d—die first.”

 

“No, my treasure, my prize.  That I will not permit.  No matter how much you might beg.”

 

Something more like a gale than a breeze whipped Zei’s hair around his face and his cry caught in his throat, fading into a weak moan.  His knees buckled, his full weight driving the manacles deeper into his flesh.

 

_Leave him alone!_

 

“You will get me what I want.”

 

Zei shook his head, stubbornly.

 

_Just don’t hurt him anymore._

 

She laughed and Zei cringed into the wall, trembling.  “There is no pain, is there, my sweet?”  Zei’s hair stirred slightly and he could only moan.  The sound came from deep in the back of his throat as his tear-filled eyes rolled closed in an involuntary swoon…

 

...of pleasure.

 

_You’re..._

 

“You know what I want, don’t you?”  Zei didn’t answer.  He didn’t even move.  He only stood there, leaning heavily against his binds; his face turned in towards his shoulder as though he would hide his face or maybe muffle his cries into his arm.

 

But then she wasn’t talking to Zei.  Arin knew this as acutely as he knew something else.  And that sudden knowledge was almost enough to make him sick.  _You want him!_

 

“In part,” she admitted.  “Look.  So perfect.  So beautiful.  So _Gifted_ and _special_.”  She made the words sound obscene, somehow.  “Were I to try to take what I want, you would force me to kill you before you would ever give in.  But, although I cannot take what I want from you, I can force another to get it for me.  Anyone.”

 

“I won’,” Zei uttered.  “I won’ do it.  I –”

 

“Have no choice really,” she mocked and she might as well have been speaking to the both of them, if indeed she wasn’t actually doing so.  “I may not be able to have you but I will have that which you can give me.”

 

_That which he can—_ Oh God!  _You want his seed!_

 

“And you will get it for me.”

 

_What?_ Arin stepped back, shocked.  _How?  I can’t— That’s—_

 

“You will do this or I will find someone else,” she threatened.  “Someone who will not care what method he uses.  And he, it shall be, for I will not grant another woman a pleasure denied myself.”

 

_You can’t make me hurt him,_ Arin told her, unable to come up with any other argument than that. 

 

“Who said anything about pain?”

 

Zei’s hair whipped about his head violently and he cried out, his back arching violently.  _No!_   Arin threw himself against the barrier separating them … and went right through it.  He staggered a bit, startled, even suspicious, then ran the last few steps towards his writhing brother.

 

He grabbed Zei’s arms, thinking only to protect him from the manacles that had bitten into both of his wrists, from that strange breeze that was causing such an adverse reaction in his body.  Zei bucked against him, trying to dislodge the attacker he couldn’t see.  Arin’s hands slipped down Zei’s slick arms and his momentum carried him right into Zei’s chest, pinning him against the wall.  A strange and exotic scent filled Arin’s nose and he realized that what he’d thought was sweat covering his brother’s half-naked body was really oil.

 

_It’s all over him,_ Arin thought or maybe said.  The difference was mute.  He reached up one hand and put it along the side of Zei’s face.  _Zei, it’s me,_ he tried to say, trying with all his heart to force some sound past his throat.  Any sound that Zei might recognize.  Zei was struggling, working at the iron braces holding his wrists until the blood ran down both arms.  Tears flowed freely down his checks, washing over the tips of Arin’s fingers as Zei tried to avoid the unwanted touch.

 

_Let him see me, damn it!  Or let me be able to talk to him!_

 

“No and no.  All stays as it is.”

 

Arin bit back a curse.  His skin was beginning to tingle, a strange sensation drifting from his fingertips, up his arm.  The scent of the oil blended with Zei’s own natural musk, becoming something as exotic as it was enticing.  It stole upon Arin’s senses like a strong wine, casting a subtle haze around his will and blurring the edges of his resistance.  He inhaled slowly; drawing a deep draught into himself until his head swam.

 

Some small bud of reason remained aware of what was happening and what he was doing.  It was the oil, which covered Zei’s skin and now his own hands, that was at fault.  What he was feeling was influenced by some narcotic property in the scent of that oil and by the penetration of it into his skin.  It was affecting his reason just as it was affecting Zei’s. 

 

That voice was distant and weak.  It stared out through Arin’s eyes and whispered recriminations in his head, admonishments that were instantly lost in the current of desire that was building within him.  Arin heard it, as one would hear some annoying buzzing in the background.  It was simply part of the din around him.  A sound as easily accredited to the rush of blood in his ears as to anything else.  He was simply too mesmerized by the perfection before him to pay it any heed. 

 

He slid his hands up Zei’s arms and across his chest and Zei drew in a shuddered breath.  His sable head rolled back against the wall behind him, the smallest sound coming from his parted lips.  Arin wet his own dry lips and slid his hands down Zei’s ribs, up the flat plane of his stomach and across the hardened nub of each nipple.  God, he was beautiful.  His skin was flawless and as smooth as a child’s, offering no texture to the glide of Arin’s hands over that tight, oiled skin.  He was thin but the muscles in his arms and chests were well defined and they tightened and bunched under his touch. 

 

Zei protested his caress.  Those feeble cries were becoming less and less insistent, though, more and more just a general plea. For what exactly he pleaded, it was no longer obvious.  His heart pounded against the palm of Arin’s hand, a frantic tempo that matched the rapid pace of his own heart in his chest.  That beat drove Arin faster.  His hands moved to match that rhythm, kneading the hardening muscles that flexed beneath them.  

 

“Yes and so,” the woman crooned.  “Take it onto your skin.  Feel what he feels.”

 

Some detached part of him wanted to tell her to shut up—among other things—but the smell of that strange oil was making him reel.  Beneath his touch, Zei was trembling.  Some instinct within Arin, wanted—needed—to calm him, to reassure him, but a stronger force just wanted to feel him.  All of him.  He grabbed the hem of his shirt and pulled it off over his head and let it fall to the floor.  He brought his body against that of his struggling brother, reveling in the seductive slide of slick skin against skin.  Zei resisted, turning his face towards the wall.  The iron restraints clanged against the wall as the chains that held him were suddenly yanked taught. 

 

A small whimper of real pain came from Zei’s throat.  It was the first indication that Zei was aware that he was hurting himself in his attempts to free his bound wrists.  Arin seized his brother’s hands and forced Zei’s back against the wall behind him; trapping him and confining his struggles beneath his greater weight.  The contrast of Zei’s smooth skin against the coarse hairs on Arin’s chest brought a gasp from them both, and a feeble syllable from Zei that penetrated the spicy allure of the oil between them. 

 

Arin shifted his position slightly, such an infinitesimal distance but it was enough.  His skin erupted with sudden life, as though every nerve ending danced on the surface of his skin with nothing to buffer the sensation.  The experience was incredible, almost painful in an erotic kind of way, oversensitive and overwhelming, and yet something that he wasn’t quite sure he wanted to go away just yet.  It was like the most remarkable sexual experience he could have ever imagined, where every movement, every touch ignited within him a response so primal, so instinctive that thought was as unnecessary as it was impossible.

 

It didn’t even bother him that it was Zei beneath him.  He loved him.  He always had.  At one time, the love they’d felt for each other had confused the hell out of him, out of them both.  Then he’d been a naïve kid of fifteen who didn’t know that it was possible to love someone and to find them to be beautiful without having to have sex with them.  He knew better now.  He now knew it was possible to love someone to the point where the flesh and the form no longer mattered.

 

They were brothers, not by blood or by birth, but by oath and by claim.  They were brothers by a bond of the soul.  They knew each other as no one else had ever known them.  They knew each other’s thoughts and each other’s movements and each other’s touch better than they knew their own.  He could never be disgusted at the thought of being with him, only at the thought of causing him pain or distress, of being forced to terrorize him first.

 

And being unable to tell Zei who it was who was touching him was as terrible for Arin as not knowing was for Zei.

 

Zei was suffering.  He was fighting; the darkness, his binds, and the intoxicating effects of the oil on his skin.  It was a battle he couldn’t hope to win though, for his own body was acting against him, responding in a way that was purely instinctual.  Arin could feel those responses coursing through the body beneath his touch, running counter to the soft, pleading whispers of protest coming from his brother’s lips.

 

Those pleas were terrified and terrible.  Zei thought himself alone amongst enemies, unable to fight them or to resist their cruel tortures much longer.  Arin needed Zei to know that he wasn’t alone.  He needed Zei to know that the one who was touching him loved him and would never hurt him.  There had to be a way to let him know, some gesture or touch that Zei would recognize; that would penetrate his blind terror enough so that he could recognize it.  And he needed to find it before they were both too far gone to fight.

 

Keeping his body against his, Arin released one of Zei’s hands and wiped the tears from beneath Zei’s eyes.  Zei turned his head away with a sob and a heart wrenching, “Please.”  Suddenly, Arin got an idea. 

 

They had, as boy’s, made a blood pact with each other, with oaths and daggers.  That very pact they still honored even now, almost ten years later.  As a result of that pact, they each had on the palm of their hand, a scar that ran from directly below the index finger diagonally to the heel.  Zei’s had healed clean, leaving only a thin white line to mark their oath.  Arin’s had not healed quite as quickly or as cleanly, and subsequently he carried a raised, pinkish-white scar that was as noticeable a decade later as it had been a mere week after they’d performed the rite.

 

Zei had cried after the rite had been completed, regretting his decision to allow Arin to bind himself to him.  Arin had wiped those tears away and then had held him close, rocking him back and forth and making hushing sounds in his ear until Zei had finally been assured that Arin had had no such regrets.  It was his tears, now, and his own attempt to wipe them away that had reminded Arin of the whole incident and it was that memory that gave him the very thing to try.

 

Arin planted both arms against the wall on either side of Zei’s head and brought his lips close to Zei’s ear.  “Shh,” he said and nearly staggered with relief when it made the desired sound.  Zei inhaled quickly but didn’t release the breath.  He stood frozen, as though he’d suddenly forgotten how to breathe, as Arin reached up and traced his finger along the scar on the palm of Zei’s hand.  His face mere inches from Zei’s, Arin watched those exquisite black eyes grow wide with hope.  He then brought the marred palm of his own hand to the side of Zei’s face, rubbing the ridge of his scar along Zei’s jaw, his chin, his lips. 

 

It was maddening, being so close to him, the intoxicating seduction of that cursed oil wreaking havoc with Arin’s intentions until it was all he could do not to…

 

A small, choked sound, somewhere between a sigh and a sob, squeezed passed Zei’s throat and Arin felt him surrender to the touch of his hand.  “Arin?” he uttered.

 

Unable to answer him, Arin pressed his face into Zei’s neck and nodded.  The rub of sensitized skin against sensitized skin coupled with the knowledge of who it was who held him, must have shattered whatever tentative hold Zei had had on his resolve.  He let his head fall against Arin’s shoulder with a sigh that danced across Arin’s neck like a caress. 

 

“It is you,” he sobbed, turning his face in to nuzzle Arin’s throat.  His lips brushed the sensitive skin at the hinge of Arin’s jaw, and Arin’s tipped his head back to give him better purchase.  “W—what’s wrong w—wit’ me?” Zei asked suddenly, out of breath and breathing faster. “Why am I doing –”

 

Arin touched his finger to Zei’s lips to silence him, turning his head to rub his stubbled chin against his brother’s smooth cheek.  Zei turn his head into the touch.  His tongue licked lightly at his fingertip and Arin drew in a quick breath.  Zei’s breath was coming faster, out pacing Arin’s with a subtle tone of fear audible in every exhale.  That fear wasn’t enough to stop him anymore, though, only to peak Arin’s own desire to allay any lingering doubt. 

 

_Trust_ _me_ , he mouthed against Zei’s throat.

 

“But—”

 

Zei pulled back slightly and Arin looked up, forgetting that Zei couldn’t see him, couldn’t see anything.  Zei’s eyes were closed, lost in the rush of the moment, in the sensory assault on every inch of exposed flesh.  His lips parted slightly, his tongue sliding out to wet them between breaths.  Lost himself, trapped by the sheer beauty of Zei’s face and by the evidence of Zei’s desire –so equal to his own—as their bodies pressed against each other, Arin slid his hand around the back of Zei’s neck.  Locking his fingers in the inky curls at his nape, he pulled Zei’s head forward as his own mouth ascended upon Zei’s.

 

There was no gasp of start, no pulling away in surprise or in horror.  Zei leaned into the kiss, as though he’d initiated it himself.  His lips parted, inviting Arin to go deeper, teasing at his tongue with his own when Arin hesitated.  The play was maddening and with a throaty groan, Arin finally obliged him.  He crushed Zei to him and invaded Zei’s mouth with his tongue in a brutal assault. 

 

Zei matched Arin’s intensity and enthusiasm, like for like, until Arin’s blood roared in his ears and his desire became a painful press against the restriction of his trousers.  And still he persisted until Arin was breathless.  It was perfect, as perfect as Arin had ever experienced, more so than he had ever imagined in his pre-pubescent, fevered dreams.  Zei’s gender wasn’t an issue and neither was his own. 

 

Zei broke away, tearing his mouth away and panting heavily.  Arin merely trailed his lips down Zei’s neck in an assault every bit as relentless as Zei’s kiss had been until Zei let out a desperate moan.  He was close, so near to climax that he was starting to tremble with the effort to fight it, to prevent it.  He let his head fall back, tears flowing from beneath his thick lashes, as he moved against Arin’s body with a building rhythm. 

 

Zei had endured the tormenting effects of the oil far longer than Arin had.  But then Zei was more in the habit of denying himself than Arin had ever been.  Zei had greater restraint than most saints did, but that restraint was no match for witchcraft or seduction potions.  It was costing him in real pain and no longer in just anguish or humiliation. 

 

“Arin, Oh God, please!”

 

That desperate plea brought Arin to the very edge and threatened to push him right over the top.  Arin slid his hand down Zei’s stomach and beneath the band of the loose trousers he wore.  His body pressed right against Zei’s, concealing as much of him as he possibly could; he closed his hand around him. 

 

“No!” Zei gasped in weak protest even as he arched his back, pressing himself further into Arin’s grip.  “Oh God!”

 

_Trust me, brother,_ Arin said against Zei’s lips and was answered as his brother brushed his tongue along Arin’s mouth.  So perfect.  He leaned forward capturing Zei’s mouth against his own as he slid his other hand down to the band of his own trousers.  He loosed himself, hiding his intent between their bodies, and closed his hand around himself.  Arin kissed Zei deeply until he was certain that his brother was no longer thinking, only feeling and utterly lost in the pleasure.  Then as carefully and as kindly as he still could, he brought them both to the very peak and then soaring over the edge together. 

 

The only sound Arin heard was the sound of the cruel chains on Zei’s wrists as they clinked against the wall and his name as it flew from Zei’s lips like a prayer for forgiveness.  That Zei’s name had sounded no less penitent as it flew silently from his own lips was something only Arin would ever know.  Spent beyond endurance, Zei slumped forward into Arin’s arms, sobbing horribly.  Arin held him, sobbing with him until he felt his brother’s body go limp as exhaustion claimed him.  Then and only then, did Arin give in to its call himself and let blessed darkness take him.

 

 

 

~~~~~<<@>>~~~~~

 

Arin came awake with a start and the immediate awareness that he wasn’t where he was supposed to be, that he wasn’t someplace familiar of even safe.  His heart slammed into his throat and his eyes shot open before he could stop them.  If someone had been watching him, waiting for just such an opportunity, he’d just handed it to her on a platter.

 

_Novice!_ he cursed himself.  _How the hell did you ever make it past Private?_

 

He lay where he was, on his back on the hard ground and concentrated on merely slowing his heart beat back down to a normal pace.  It took a while but eventually it settled to its usual tempo and the dull thumping in his ears faded away to nothing.  Still he lay there unmoving, just listening and blinking in the dimness of the room.

 

Where the hell was he, now?  He could barely make out the ceiling above him, so high was it and what little light there was didn’t seem to reach it.  He had a vague impression that it was stone like the walls, which supported it, but he couldn’t tell if it was flat or conical.  He guessed it was flat by the uniformity of the color and shading.  If it were conical he wouldn’t have been able to see the peak, as it would have been completely lost in the shadows.

 

Why the hell it mattered one way or another was beyond him.  It wasn’t as if it was going to tell him anything useful.  Still he pondered it, his head muzzy and his thoughts unable to focus on anything beyond the obvious.  Not yet anyway.

 

The ceiling was flat, he decided and maybe thirty feet above him where he lay on the floor.  It was also round.  Or rather the room was round and not very large.  Maybe less than seven feet in diameter and completely made of stone bricks, it looked more like a well than a tower of some kind.  That thought settled uneasily but logic quickly prevailed.  Wells didn’t have ceilings.  They also didn’t have windows and the light had to be coming from somewhere.  Right?

 

He traced his gaze down the walls until he found its source.  Narrow holes were carved into the walls starting about half way up the wall.  Row upon row of them, eight in all, they resembled the arrow slits he’d seen in castle walls, only these were too high up to possibly be used for that purpose.  Perhaps their only purpose was what they seemed, to let in light and air.

 

Like holes punched into the lid of a bug jar, Arin thought morosely then chided himself for even thinking it.  As though the well thought wasn’t unpleasant enough.

 

He closed his eyes almost wishing he could fall back asleep.  The problem was he wasn’t the least bit sleepy.  He was wide-awake.  He just didn’t seem to be firing with a full clip.  It was like being drunk without the benefit of being inebriated, the thought processes impaired but not enough so that he couldn’t notice.

 

Wonder if this is what Keegan feels like when he’s looped on hempweed.  He could remember watching his younger friend stare at a spider building a web in the corner as though it was the most fascinating thing he’d ever seen in his entire life, rambling on endlessly about the technique the arachnid was using and pondering what its first victim might actually be.  Arin had been tempted to crush the damn thing just to shut him up.  Of course in his state, Keegan probably would have wanted to examine the smudge its body had left on the wall.

 

Personally, Arin had never cared too much for the mind numbing sensation the narcotic laced cigarettes produced.  It unnerved him to not be in control; to have his reflexes slowed or his judgment dulled.  He’d always feared that he would need his full wits about him at that exact moment when he least had them and he’d get himself killed.  That was kind of what he felt like now.  Looped on weed without the slightest recollection of how he’d gotten that way.

 

Or did he?

 

Even as he thought about it, strange images flashed behind his closed lids. 

 

A dark room, not unlike the one he was in… An ethereal face just inches from his own… The press of soft lips against his neck… A smooth, white body under his sun darkened hands…

 

His eyes flew open as a gasp tore across his throat like sandpaper across a sunburn.  The pain choked him for a moment, as did the sudden memory of trying to speak, to yell and being unable to make a sound.  He had a second to panic when he heard a small sound from somewhere within the room.

 

He turned his head from side to side, scanning the floor around him.  Huddled against the wall, just within his sight range, lay a black clad figure.  It lay on its side with its back to Arin; its knees pulled in close to its chest.  Arin took in the narrow hips and shoulders, the raven black hair, and the dark clothing, for less than a second before his addled brain kicked into gear.“

 

Zei!” he cried in alarm.  Or tried to, anyway.  It came out as a hoarse whisper that clawed its way over his raw vocal cords and died at the end of his tongue. 

 

Arin rolled over onto his side, setting his teeth to keep from grunting as he forced his stiff, sore muscles to respond.  Pushing himself to his knees he crawled over to where his brother was curled in on himself like a frightened child.

 

He stirred; making a small, almost inaudible sound of protest and Arin carefully leaned over him so he could see his face.  He looked so young and fragile, lying like he was.  His hair was a riot of waves, tangles, and bits of straw from the floor beneath his head.  It hung forward, fanned against his pale cheek and across one eye.  Arin reached out his hand to gently brush the silky lock aside and froze, suddenly noticing the terrible cuts and bruises which circled both of Zei’s wrists.

 

Immediately those hazy images he’d witnessed a few minutes before were not so hazy.  He saw a dark room, the cell where they’d been held.  Zei chained to the wall half-naked and somehow blinded just as Arin had been made mute.  He could hear Zei’s frantic cries, his frightened voice calling out to him as he struggled to free his arms from their entrapment.

 

Then the images changed.  The memory became something erotic and fevered.  His head cleared with the breathless abruptness of a bucket of ice water in the face and he remembered everything.

 

Heat erupted within him at the memory of Zei’s lips against his own, the desperate exploration of Zei’s tongue within his compliant and willing mouth, the brutal possession of his own within Zei’s.  His head reeled and he fell back, barely catching himself with a hand on the floor behind him.

 

The images kept coming, clearer and relentless, and he didn’t bother to fight them.  He couldn’t have if he’d tried and he found that he didn’t want to.  He could almost feel that strange tingling sensation creeping up his arms, that curious current of sensual electricity creeping along every inch of his skin until his own clothes felt momentarily uncomfortable.  He could feel the exquisite slide of Zei’s smooth, oil slicked chest against his own and Zei’s hard weight within his tightening hand.  The heat of him still burned against his palm, as vivid a memory as the exact moment that Zei’s fear had turned into surrender in the form of a gentle brush of his lips against Arin’s throat.

 

And under all that, Arin could hear the cruel, mocking laughter of the one who’d forced this on them.  He remembered everything; including what it was their jailer had hoped to gain from her twisted little entertainment.

 

Zei’s seed.  Or more specifically, Zei’s son.

 

_So_ Gifted _and_ special _._

 

The contempt in their jailer’s cold voice when she’d said those words had been as obvious as the greed when she’d referred to him as her sweet, her treasure, her prize.  She’d hated what he was even as she’d coveted him for it.  It sickened Arin to even think about it and, not for the first time, he wished he knew of some way to turn things back to how they’d been before they knew.  He wished he knew of some way to shield his brother from what he was so nothing like this could have ever happened.

 

But there was no way to change the past any more than there was a way to deny the present.  Zei was what he was and there was nothing he or anyone else could do about it.  And as for protecting him… well the powers that were had already tried hiding him away from the world and his fate had proven to be much stronger than even their greatest efforts.

 

Arin had known Zei since they were boys—well Arin had just crossed the threshold into teenager but he was still more boy than adult.  They’d been brothers for over a decade, had shared everything about themselves, and had forged for themselves a bond stronger than anything mere siblings achieved by luck of birth.  They were connected.  They both knew it and neither had ever really thought to analyze the mechanics of it or question the existentialism of it.

 

Well, maybe Zei had questioned it, in the beginning, when it was still new for them and he was still suspicious of people’s intentions towards him.  Looking like he had as a boy, beautiful and remarkable when his people as a whole were plain and so very unremarkable, it was no wonder.  His people had seemed to think that his differentness somehow marked him as wrong—the word they’d been inclined to use was _fey_.  They’d tended to treat him coldly, though others had been intrigued with him to the point of obsession. 

 

In time, he’d learned to trust the validity of what they had, trusting in the strength of it as well as the truth of it.  The pact they’d sworn with each other had been one that was considered sacred to Zei’s people and as such, it had always seemed to be so much stronger for Zei.  Arin had always noticed that Zei had an uncanny perception of things around him, but with Arin it was surreal.  He seemed to know whenever Arin was near with a certainty that was almost precognitive.  He seemed to be able to sense Arin’s most subtle of emotions, reacting to things Arin hadn’t even shown on his face as though he’d voiced them out loud. 

 

Arin had always secretly wondered about this mysterious knack of his, even as he’d accepted it as just another part of the whole ethereal package that was Zei, the angelic face, the jet black eyes, the Otherly nature.  Never had he suspected that there was a reason why he was different than his sackcloth people or that there might actually be a name for what he was.

 

_Divinity_ , as in Blessed and Beloved of a Goddess, a Goddess who neither of them had ever even heard of before a few months ago, and who neither of them could deny existed now.  He was Gifted, bestowed with a Sight not granted to normal mortals.  He could see the true nature of people despite the masks they wore to conceal themselves from the world.  He could sense their emotions as clearly as though they were his own.  He could understand them regardless of the language they spoke and upon hearing them speak, intuit their words as though native.  He could see the past, the present and the future, following any given point to its possible end, or tracing any tragic event back to its deciding cause.  Lastly, though it frightened him beyond measure, he could see and converse with the spirits of those who had come before and who had, for some reason or another, failed to leave when Death had called them.

 

Arin was still trying to reconcile himself to the fact that nothing about Zei was what he’d thought it was.  So was Zei and having a much harder time of it, too.  Everything that he’d believed to be true about his life had turned out to be a lie, an elaborate fabrication constructed and perpetuated by the desperate need to keep him hidden and safe.  The Goddess who had Blessed him had fallen prey to dark forces, evil sorcery that Arin would never pretend to comprehend.  Those same forces had wanted all and any who might be able to thwart them.  Foremost on that list was Zei, barely six years old and already aware of his nature.

 

They’d sent him away, hiding him in a land where such forces couldn’t follow him, where such forces couldn’t see him and therefore wouldn’t be able to find him.  But first they’d buried his Gifts deep within him, suppressing all that he was beneath layer upon layer of false images and memories, stripping him of all knowledge of the Gifts that were intrinsic to his being.  He became the quiet, guarded boy who, after suffering so much in the hands of his own foster people as well as in the hands of others who’d seen him as nothing more than an exotic pet, Arin had found and taken under his young wing.

 

Fate had coaxed him back to the land of his birth, after nearly fifteen years in exile, and had awakened what had, up until that point, been dormant.  His preternatural awareness had been but a latent quality of a much more powerful skill.  So, as it turned out, had been the bond, which had formed between them.  They had always believed it to be a spiritual thing; a concept or notion based more on vow and devotion than on anything physical.  It wasn’t until a near fatal injury to Zei had nearly killed Arin as well, that they’d realized that it, like everything else about Zei’s talents, was real.  Somehow, Zei had inadvertently bound their souls together.

 

Arin looked down at his sleeping brother, letting his gaze drift over his pale face until it came to rest on his abused wrists.  His gut twisted painfully as he remembered how Zei had torn and pulled on the iron manacles, trying desperately to free himself.  Their jailer had known exactly what to do to hurt them both the most.  It was as if hurting them—or maybe just Zei—had been the real objective and all her claims of wanting what Zei could give her had all been a ruse, just part of the torment. 

 

He shook his head.  He didn’t believe that.  The frustration was too obvious in her voice.  Zei had somehow resisted her.  Sometime before Arin had awakened to find him strapped to the wall covered in that strange seductive oil, she’d tried to take what she’d wanted from Zei and she’d failed.  Her last resort was as much to punish Zei for resisting her as it was to grant her what she wanted all along.

 

It was written of the males in Zei’s line, that the weakest of the son’s Gifts would be greater by far than the greatest of the father’s.  So far, according to what they’d been told, that legacy had proven true.  Zei was the sixth generation to carry the Goddess’ Blessing and even coming to his Gifts as late as he had, his were much stronger than his father’s had been.  Zei’s son would be even stronger still.

 

Influencing the child early, corrupting him while his Gifts were still awakening would afford whoever controlled the child immeasurable power.  That had been the fear when they’d sent Zei away, that he’d fall into the wrong hands and his Divine Gifts would become corrupted, his purpose perverted.  And that bitch had thought to steal Zei’s son before he was even conceived.

 

Zei stirred again, his face twisting into a grimace of pain or fear.  He curled up even tighter, a slight shudder running down the whole length of him as another soft whimper escaped his throat.  Another followed it, louder, more negating.  Fearing a nightmare, Arin laid his hands on him to gently shake him awake.

 

Awaken he did, with a cry and a rush of frantic motion.  Arin ducked underneath Zei’s flailing arm and managed to catch him mid-flight, mindful of his injured wrists as well as how he might interpret his arm suddenly being pinned.

 

“Zei, it’s me,” he said quickly, overjoyed when his voice actually worked.  It hurt like hell, trying to strain his vocal cords to be heard over his brother’s shout of alarm.  His throat felt raw, as though he’d been out in the cold and damp, yelling at the top of his lungs for half a day.  He was amazed that any sound came out at all.  “It’s Arin.”

 

It didn’t sound anything like his voice, or even like one Zei was likely to recognize, but somehow it penetrated Zei’s confusion and fright.  He stopped struggling and looked up, forcing his red-rimmed, black eyes to focus on Arin’s face.  “Arin?” he asked hopefully.  He touched Arin’s face hesitantly as though he was afraid it would disappear underneath his fingertip.  Finding the flesh beneath his touch to be solid, he let out a sob of relief.  “You’re all right?”

 

Arin nodded with a smile.  “You?” he managed to whisper.

 

Zei was slow to answer.  “I don’t know,” he said after a while.  “I feel…” He shook his head, blinking tears out of his bloodshot eyes.  “I feel out of it.”  As thought to prove his point, his eyes went out of focus, his lids dropping heavily.  He forced them open again; determination set in his jaw.  “Where are we?”

 

Arin shook his head, but Zei wasn’t looking at him anymore.  His gaze was scanning the walls around him, squinting painfully through a veil of tears that seemed to flow endlessly from his injured eyes.  His hand fell away from Arin’s face as he slowly turned.  The motions of his head became more erratic the more he looked.  His face now turned away from Arin, his expression was hidden; but Arin could feel the panic rising within him.

 

The room was small in diameter.  Very small.  The walls were high.  Very high.  Zei was on his knees, unsteadily, the hand he’d had against Arin’s cheek now against the wall, using it for support as he tried to rise to his feet.  He barely made it, unconsciously shaking off Arin’s attempts to keep him sitting.  His gaze was now fixed on the wall behind Arin so intently that Arin couldn’t help but turn to see what held his attention. 

 

There was a door, of all things.  Wooden and windowless and, no doubt, locked and barred.  Before Arin could point this out to his brother, though, Zei pushed himself away from the wall towards it.  He stumbled more than walked, his legs as sketchy as his eyesight, if Arin could judge accurately by the way Zei squinted and blinked.  He made it all of a few steps when his legs folded beneath him and he went down with a cry.

 

“Zei!” Arin called to him as he made his way on hands and knees—he knew his legs were no more steady than Zei’s—over to where Zei lay in the straw.  His face was in his hands, or more specifically, the heels of his hands were pressed into both eyes, and his teeth were clenched in pain. 

 

“My eyes,” Zei uttered in response to the touch of Arin’s hand on his shoulder.  “Dhey burn.”

 

“Let me see,” Arin said, kneeling in front of his brother. 

 

But Zei shook his head.  “Dhe door—”

 

“Will stay locked or unlocked whether I check it now or after I check out your eyes.”  When Zei resisted, Arin carefully wrapped his fingers around Zei’s wrists—below the cruel marks the manacles had left—and eased his brother’s hands away from his eyes.  “Come on, let me have a look.”

 

Zei quit resisting, his hands falling limp by his side as soon as Arin released them.  He opened his eyes, releasing a wash of tears that made Arin’s own eyes blink in sympathy, as Arin gathered his face in his hands and turned his head so he could have a look.  “They look like someone poured salt in them,” Arin told him hoarsely. It was an effort to talk and this last sentence had sounded even worse than the few prior had.

 

“Your voice,” Zei said through clenched teeth. His hands were clenched as well, into tight fists by his thighs in an effort to keep them down by his side.

 

“Feels like your eyes, I’d imagine,” he finished, whispering painfully.  “Like someone went at it with sandpaper.”   He tipped Zei’s face towards the light, releasing another flood of tears from his irritated eyes.  His eyes were so black it was almost impossible to discern the pupil from the iris in good light.  In the dim light coming in through the narrow holes in the wall, there was no telling one from the other, let alone were those pupils dilating properly.

 

He leaned in closer hoping that maybe a different angle might help him see what he wanted to see.  His face was mere inches from Zei’s when Zei drew in a sudden, shaky breath, grabbing Arin’s hands by the wrists and pulling them away from his face.

 

“I—I was blinded,” Zei uttered, his face taking on the bewildered expression of one in shock.  Dazed, his gaze drifted down to Arin’s hands still held in his own, but it wasn’t on Arin’s hands that his focus fixed.  It was onto his own wrists and the terrible cuts and bruises, which encircled them.  His eyes grew wide, numb confusion making way for acute horror, as he seemed to make the bitter connection to what those marks represented.

 

He remembers, Arin realized.  Though what exactly Zei was remembering Arin couldn’t be sure.  Arin could remember everything that had happened, the images still dancing through his head like a fevered, erotic dream.  But he hadn’t been under the influence of that strange oil as long as Zei had been.  He’d been at least aware, even if he hadn’t been fully in control of what he was doing.  But Zei had been only partially coherent, reacting to things on a purely physical level.  All of his reason had been altered and impaired, like a man drunk on too much wine, no more aware than he was in control of what he was doing.  Arin had figured that Zei wouldn’t remember a thing.

 

But he was remembering, the slow rising shadow of realization drawing the color out of his white face with every shaky breath. 

 

“Zei?” Arin called gently.

 

The hands he gripped around Arin’s wrists spasmed once as his eyes shot to his.  Fear filled and half-crazed with—God knew what was going through his head at that moment—his eyes narrowed slightly in what?  Confusion?  Or Accusation?

 

“You—?” he started, his voice choked off by a sudden gasp of breath.  He released Arin’s wrists and backed away with an anguished cry.  “Oh God, no!”

 

Arin felt himself suddenly go cold at the complete and utter desolation in Zei’s stricken voice.  It was no longer what Zei remembered, that concerned Arin.  It was how he was remembering it.  That fear struck Arin like a blow to the gut, driving all the air right out of him.  What was Zei seeing?  Had last night been reduced to nothing more than the stark and terrible memory of cold iron biting into his wrists and his ankles, of a thick black film blinding his eyes, and of unknown hands touching his skin, Arin might have known how to ease his fears.

 

But Zei knew whose hands had touched him, whose lips had brushed his own.  He’d all but told Arin this when he’d said _You—_.  Was it in accusation?  Did he feel betrayed?  Violated?  Could he really remember none of what had happened before?  Could he really not remember why Arin had had to do what he’d done? 

 

Arin was at a loss.  He couldn’t think.  Hell, he could barely breathe.  Concerned by his brother’s violent trembling, the panicked gasps for breath, Arin reached out to draw Zei close.  It was all he knew to do when Zei was this distressed. 

 

His hands landed lightly on Zei’s shoulders.  “No,” Zei pleaded, jerking out and away from Arin’s touch with a cringing shudder.

 

Had Zei taken one of his favored throwing points and plunged it straight into Arin’s chest, it couldn’t have hurt him more than did that one word and the shudder that had accompanied it.  He pulled his hands back in wounded surprise and stared at his brother beseechingly. “Zei, please don’t do—”

 

“Why, Arin?” Zei cried then and Arin’s hand flew to his chest as though Zei had stabbed him.

 

_Why?_   Arin looked at him incredulously.  “What do you mean, why?”  _How can he ask me that?_   _He can’t possibly remember everything that really happened and still ask me that._ “You can’t remember what they were threatening to do.”

 

But Zei nodded his head frantically.  “I remember everyt’ing,” he cried, his eyes squeezed shut and his arms wrapped around his stomach.

 

“Then what the hell was I supposed to do?” Arin snapped back painfully.  “Just sit back and watch you be mauled and—and brutalized by some brute?”

 

“I wish you ‘ad.”

 

Arin recoiled as though Zei had struck him right across the face instead of having just whispered that one despair-filled sentence.  The words and the shattered tone in his empty voice seized the air in Arin’s throat so that all he could utter was a disbelieving, “What?”

 

Zei turned his head slightly but not enough to look at Arin.  Tears were streaming down his pale cheeks and he was shaking violently.  His voice when he spoke was so soft Arin could barely hear him.  Arin wasn’t exactly sure that he wanted to.

 

“I wish you ‘ad,” Zei said again sounding as though his throat had been injured along with Arin’s.  “I could ‘ave lived wit’ dhat.”  He drew a shaky breath.  “And still be able to face you.  It would 'ave been ‘ard but—” He yanked in another breath.  “I could ‘ave done it.”

 

Arin’s throat let go of the breath it had captured and he released it in a sigh of disbelief and amazement.  If he’d been standing he would have folded to the floor; he felt that poleaxed.  He blinked and breathed and tried to focus his brain to interpret what he’d just heard his brother say.   What exactly was he so upset about?  Was it so hard for him to accept that it had been Arin, who had been touching him, kissing him?  Would he really have preferred it had it been a stranger?  Someone who might have hurt him in the process?  Would that have made it more bearable? 

 

“I don’t und—”

 

“You shouldn’t ‘ave ‘ad to do dhat,” Zei uttered.  He drew in another shuddered breath, too close on the heels of the one before it and the one before that, as well.

 

“Zei,” Arin tried again, suddenly certain that he still wasn’t interpreting his brother correctly.

 

“I’m so sorry.”  Zei sucked in another breath, releasing but half of it before seizing after another, just as deep as the ones before it.

 

_He’s hyperventilating_ , Arin observed in the back of his mind.  _Except he doesn’t seem to realize it yet._   Closer to the surface, it was finally becoming clear to Arin what had Zei so upset.  It was ridiculously obvious and even more, it was just plain ridiculous.  Arin would have laughed if he didn’t feel so emotionally drained all of a sudden.  _God, he’s blaming himself?  What?  Does he think that I’m mortified about what happened?  That I blame him?  Is he really ashamed because he thinks that I am?  Oh, Zei, how could you ever think that?_

 

Another deep breath, a shallow exhale, and a vague desperation began to creep into Zei’s eyes.  He was still speaking; the words no longer strung together into anything even resembling a sentence, broken or otherwise.  Arin was no longer even certain what language Zei was speaking, the words sounding more like a combination of Zei’s own native Dre’ and the Telyrni that Arin spoke.  It was the tone that concerned Arin.

 

Even whispered, staccatoed by gasps after the air of which Zei could no longer seem to find enough, Arin could hear the high tone of real panic building within him.  It matched the frantic look in his eyes right before he squeezed them shut.  He knew that he was in trouble.

 

Arin caught him, his hands closing around Zei’s upper arms hard enough to arrest his escape.  “Zei!” he yelled, as loud as he could with his injured vocal cords.  He’d given his brother’s name its true pronunciation, each vowel its own sound and accentuation, giving his name the proper two syllables instead of just one.  Zei’s native tongue had always reached him like no other foreign words ever could and even that one small word, his name said as it was meant to be said, wrought a minuscule response out of him.  “ _Haven naire’, Enyue!_ ”  Arin said, speaking Dre’.  < _Calm down, brother._ >

 

Even as he said it, though, Arin knew that it was out of Zei’s control.  He was merely too upset.  He released Zei’s arms and cupped his brother’s face firmly in both hands.  Tears streamed down his face, no longer dammed by Zei’s thick lashes no matter how tightly he’d closed his eyes.  Zei still spoke, almost entirely in Dre’ now, the same guilt-ridden phrase over and over again.  < _You shouldn’t have had to do that._ >

 

No longer able to hear anything beyond his own frantic distress, Arin’s words were useless.  It didn’t matter what language in which he spoke them.  Zei was past the point where he could hear them, let alone understand them.  He’d come completely unhinged and only a shock greater than what had set him off was going to snap him out of it.  Arin could no more raise his hand against his brother than he could reach inside his own chest and tear out his still-beating heart.  Just the thought of striking him twisted in Arin’s gut as though he’d tried to do just that.

 

Pain was not an option, which left only one other choice.  Maybe it would serve a dual purpose.  Maybe it would only make things worse.  Arin didn’t know, but he couldn’t afford to waste any more time thinking about it.  His hands holding Zei’s face firmly, he leaned close and gently kissed Zei on the lips.

 

 

 

~~~~~<<@>>~~~~~

 

Zei froze.  Beneath his touch, Arin could feel the mad tempo of his heart, a steady rhythm where the side of his hand lay against Zei’s life vein.  Other than that, Zei was completely rigid.  His soft lips were slack, neither responding nor resisting the gentle pressure Arin brushed against them.

 

The kiss was chaste, Arin’s mouth closed against Zei’s lips.  It had been his intention to shock him, after all, not scare him half out of his mind, so the instant Arin felt his brother was silent, he slowly broke contact.

 

He drew away, looking at his brother’s face.  At the stunned expression on his face, Arin almost laughed.  Zei’s eyes were wide, tears still leaking from their corners with every bewildered blink.  Arin brushed them away with his thumbs.

 

That gesture snapped Zei out of his immediate daze and his brow dipped over his narrowing eyes.  < _Why did you do that?_ > he asked in a low, mystified voice.

 

< _You were becoming hysterical,_ > Arin told him softly.  Zei had spoken in Dre’ and so Arin had answered him in kind.  He hadn’t intended his voice to sound so casual, so matter-of-fact.  It had just come out that way.  Maybe in response to the casual curiosity in Zei’s voice.

 

Of course there was no casual curiosity in Zei’s expression to match what was in his soft voice.  He looked absolutely stunned, almost witless.  His dark eyes narrowed slightly in confusion, his brow dipping again as his addled mind tried to ponder the apparent logic in Arin’s explanation.

 

He blinked his sore eyes.  < _I thought you were supposed to slap hysterical people._ >

 

Had there been an ounce of wit present in Zei’s tone of voice, Arin might have laughed.  But Zei’s tone hadn’t changed and neither had that stunned expression on his pale face.  He’d gone from one extreme to the other in a matter of a minute and the sudden decompression seemed to have left him no more coherent.  If anything, he seemed even more confused and off centered than he’d been, as though he could have understood it better—handled it better—had Arin struck him to snap him out of his hysteria instead of what he’d done.

 

The very thought made Arin ill and he couldn’t suppress the wince.  “You know I could never hit you,” he told him, Zei’s face still held in his hands so his brother couldn’t look away.  “It would kill me.”

 

Zei didn’t respond immediately.  He just continued to look at Arin, his dark eyes searching Arin’s, looking for something but seemingly unable to find it.  Arin held that gaze easily.  Even injured, those eyes were beautiful, that gaze mesmerizing, like two pools of violet fire smoldering within the heart of two flawless jewels of the blackest jet.

 

That gaze unnerved some people.  A face that looked that young shouldn’t have eyes that seemed that ancient.  It hurt him.  Arin knew this for a fact, having seen the pain wash across Zei’s face in response to the reaction his gaze was known to cause.  _An angel’s face with the eyes of the Devil.  That’s all your people ever saw.  So that is all you can see.  Funny, but I could always see so much more._

 

“But—” Zei breathed finally

 

Arin ran his thumb along Zei’s lower lip, silencing his weak protest.  “I already told you, En,” he said softly.  “I couldn’t bear the thought of you being touched that way by a stranger, someone who couldn’t possibly love you, who might have been cruel and hurt you.  You couldn’t bear it either.  Zei, you were fighting them and you fought me too, until you knew it was me.  Then you gave in.”

 

The pulse in the hinge of Zei’s jaw hammered against the side of Arin’s hand, the frantic tattoo of a frightened animal, yet he seemed quiet.  Through the veil of steady tears tracing lines down his ashen cheeks, his dark eyes held fast to Arin’s gaze, confused and lost and seeking.

 

“Do you have any idea how that made me feel?” Arin asked him, trying to make his eyes show what Zei so desperately wanted to find, only he didn’t know what that was.  “You surrendered yourself to me.  Not them, but me.” 

 

Those black eyes narrowed slightly.  “I—I couldn’t fight it anymore,” Zei admitted, color tingeing the flesh beneath Arin’s hands.  His pulse quickened, his search of Arin’s gaze intensifying.

 

“And once you knew it was me you knew you didn’t have to.  You don’t know what that trust means to me.”

 

More confusion and something else crept into Zei’s eyes and not for the first time, Arin couldn’t help but marvel at the depth of emotion that his brother’s eyes could relay.  But he couldn’t marvel long.  His words should have reassured him.  If not the words themselves than the heart he’d put behind them.  Why did Zei still seem so lost?  _How do I reassure him?_   Was there anything that he could say that could reassure him?  That was the real question in Arin’s heart.  That, and could Zei ever bring himself to forgive either of them?

 

“I don’ know where we are anymore,” Zei said then, his accent sharp and lilting.  “And I’m afraid of what dhis ‘as done to us.”

 

“Why should you be afraid?” Arin asked lightly.  “You’re the Empath here.  If either of us should know—” 

 

Arin stopped short, his eyes growing wide with realization and shock.  Zei was Empathic.  He was not just perceptive to people’s emotions; he was receptive to them.  He could feel them as though they were his own, manifesting within him as a sensation as tangible as touch and taste and sound and smell.  But not only could he feel people’s emotions, he could feel _them_ as well.  Especially Arin.

 

Last night flashed through Arin’s mind.  Blinded and bound, Zei had called out repeatedly to Arin. Where’s Arin?  What have you done with him?  Where is he?  Zei had never needed to see Arin to know he was near.  He never needed to see him to know how he fared.  He was bound to Arin, the mental link between them stronger than most twins experienced.  Had Arin been hurt, Zei would have felt the pain as acutely as a wound in his own body.  Blinded and bound, his senses impaired, he should have still been able to feel that Arin was near. 

 

Yet it wasn’t until Arin had touched the scar to Zei’s lip that Zei had realized who it was who’d been touching him.

 

“You can’t feel me, can you?” he asked Zei.  A strange, tight panic filled his chest.  Nothing could block the link between them, or so they’d thought.  So they’d been told.  Nothing short of Zei’s death, for it came from him.  “You couldn’t feel me last night and you can’t now.”

 

Zei shook his head.  “It’s like I’m still blinded,” he answered.  “I don’ understand it.  I can always feel you like you’re part of me.  Dhe odher half of my ‘eart and my soul.  Sometimes I can’ even feel what separates us it’s dhat seamless.  It’s gone, now.”

 

“Then get it back,” Arin urged.  Why it should frighten Arin as much as it did Zei, he couldn’t say.  It just did.  It was something special, something that was theirs.  It had taken years to fuse their relationship into a mesh tight enough and strong enough to support that link.  She’s destroyed that link somehow, severed that which wasn’t supposed to be able to be severed. 

 

Worse than that, though, she’d weakened the cloth, which they’d woven through experiences and patience and trust and love.  I don’t know where we are anymore.  She’d sent doubt into that weave to feed on the threads like a moth on linen.

 

“I don’ know what will ‘appen to us if I do,” Zei told him, a slight tremor coming into his voice to match the one Arin could feel building within his body.  “To feel you like dhat… all t’rough me… after… I—I don’ know what I’ll do.”

 

“It doesn’t matter, _Enyue_ ,” Arin assured him gently.  “You’ll do what you want to do, what your own heart and head tell you to do.”

 

“What if it’s not what you want me to do?”

 

Arin smiled, a smile meant to reassure a frightened ‘little brother’ that everything will be all right.  “Don’t worry about that,” he said leaning forward to lay a fraternal kiss on his brother’s forehead.  He pulled back and let their gazes meet again.  “I want you whole.  That’s all I’ve ever wanted for—”

 

He stopped suddenly, a quick breath of shock hissing through his teeth.  Zei eyes had changed so abruptly that Arin hadn’t even noticed the transition.  One second they were wide and troubled, the next, they were locked on Arin’s, the focus intense and deep, penetrating almost.  As Arin watched, the unbelievable blackness of those large irises grew smoky, a faint violet fire building beneath the surface of their inky depths.  Arin barely had time to marvel at their exquisite beauty when that focus delved deeper and Arin found himself thoroughly pinned by that bottomless gaze, unable to look away or even so much as blink. 

 

And he didn’t even think to try.  Suddenly that violet blackness expanded engulfing Arin’s entire field of vision.  Or maybe it was that Arin’s focus narrowed to take in only those smoldering eyes beneath him.  He wasn’t sure, but he felt like he was standing on a cliff, looking down at the swirling blackness of a night darkened sea as it reached up to take him—or maybe he fell towards it.  It didn’t matter which, really.  Arin let himself be swallowed up in the depths of that piercing stare, fully aware of what was happening and not the slightest bit afraid.  He welcomed it. 

 

Zei’s hands had curled around the tops of Arin’s arms, his grip almost painful.  Arin felt it at a distance, like a discomfort vaguely remembered.  He felt the floor beneath him in much the same detached and incorporeal way.  It was like he was floating, his senses slowly being pushed aside, turning into mist and whorls of feather-soft smoke, twisting and twirling around him, pulling away all sense of his body, leaving nothing behind but thought and a sense of self. 

 

It wasn’t real, though, that feeling of weightlessness, of incorporeity.  Arin knew this but he gave himself up to the sensation, willing himself open and exposed, trying to draw Zei into himself like a draught of air to a suffocating man. 

 

Zei held his gaze helplessly transfixed while he delved into the recesses of Arin’s soul with an intensity that seemed almost primal.  Arin couldn’t really feel the intrusion but he knew the very instant that it had occurred.   The grip on his arms tightened to bruising force, Zei’s eyes erupting with raven-violet fire.  Regret nearly choked him, regret that the bond between them was such that he could not feel Zei the way Zei could feel him.

 

Suddenly Arin found himself released.  Reality slammed back into place with all the abruptness of waking from a dream in which he was falling.  He was back in solid form, his hands pressing into the hard floor behind him to hold himself upright.  The vise-like pressure on his upper arms was gone, the site throbbing sharply with returned circulation.  But then the focus of that sensation was yanked to another. 

 

Zei was kissing him.

 

 

 

~~~~~<<@>>~~~~~

 

Somewhere, during that time when all Arin could see and feel was the smoldering violet blackness of Zei’s eyes, their positions had switched.  Zei now held Arin’s face in his hands, the touch gentle but at the same time firm, while Arin’s own hands were numb and useless behind him. Arin had only a moment to register what was happening.  Somewhere between shock and surprise, Arin could only gasp at the hungry press of Zei’s lips upon his own.

 

There was nothing chaste about this kiss.  It was as far from the one Arin had touched to Zei’s lips to snap him out of his building hysterics, but equally as startling.  Zei’s mouth slanted over his, his tongue tracing along the seam of Arin’s lips, coaxing and teasing and seemingly content to simply taste at them. There was an urgency in the tempo of his breathing that belied the calm motion of his tongue, though, a desperation that brought back heated memories of the night before and the kiss they’d shared equally.

 

Arin found himself responding.  He let his lips part and gasped again when, with a feral moan, Zei’s penetrated that barrier and his tongue touched Arin’s.  He slid one hand behind Arin’s head, his slender fingers lacing through his hair and closing around the strands.  His kiss deepened, his tongue plundering Arin’s mouth with the same intensity with which his gaze had plundered his soul, seeking and demanding and pleading.

 

For what, Arin didn’t have a clue, or the ability to think enough to deduce one.  Zei was pouring every ounce of himself into the kiss, his tongue and lips playing over and with Arin’s with a skill Arin would never have imagined his quiet, shy brother had.  Arin found himself meeting and mirroring the hungry thrusts and motions with his own lips and tongue.

 

Even as he did this, some part of his mind remained alert and coherent enough to ponder what all this meant.  Was this really what Zei wanted?   A stronger physical aspect to accompany what had always been a very spiritual relationship?  They’d never shied from touching each other in the past.  But despite what others might have believed, those touches had always been platonic, no more untoward than any two siblings might be wont to share.  Did Zei suddenly want more?

 

More importantly, did Arin mind?

 

He didn’t really have to ponder the question long.  The simple truth of the matter was that he loved Zei more than anyone or anything he’d ever loved in his life.  Including his own family.  They were two halves of the same soul.  There was absolutely nothing that Zei could ask of him that Arin would deny. Not even this.

 

He barely had a chance to acknowledge that realization when Zei broke off the kiss with a small, quiet sob.  He dropped his forehead on to Arin’s shoulder, his hands sliding down to ball in the fabric of Arin’s shirt.  His breathing was swift and ragged, and his body trembled ever so slightly in reaction. 

 

Arin wasn’t feeling any steadier.  His heart was thumping fiercely in his chest, suffusing his whole body with heat, making the room feel cold by comparison.  His throat was dry and painfully abraded, and the discomfort was only further exacerbated by his own rapid breathing.  His mind was spinning in ever tightening, little circles, caught in a cycle somewhere between arousal and relief.

 

“ _Je regren, Enyue,_ ” Zei said softly, his voice subtly anguished.  “Dhat was terribly cruel of me.”

 

Arin blinked, looking down at the top of Zei’s raven head.  “What was?” he asked in addled confusion.  “Kissing me like that… or stopping in the middle of it?”

 

A startled, unexpected chuckle escaped Zei’s lips.  It sounded fragile, though not quite hysterical, but it was like music to Arin’s ears.  The mad whirl of Arin’s thoughts slowed then stopped, his focus leveling out and returning to normal.  Gone was the confusion, replaced with a quiet curiosity and… anticipation?… wondering where, if anywhere, Zei was going to take it. 

 

That he wasn’t anxious settled around him like a soft cloak.  He’d told Zei that he only wanted him whole, but more than that, he wanted Zei to be happy.  Although he might have balked at the thought with anyone else; being more to Zei than just his brother somehow didn’t seem that difficult and conflicting a notion.  It seemed remarkably simple.

 

A shiver coursed through Zei’s body suddenly, and he pressed in closer to Arin’s chest.  His fingers twisted in Arin’s shirt.  “You wouldn’t ‘ave stopped me?” he uttered against Arin’s shoulder. 

 

Elation flooded Arin.  Zei’s words had not been in reply to what Arin had said but what he’d been feeling.  “You felt that,” he said joyfully.  He shifted his weight forward enough so he wouldn’t fall over backwards with the loss of his hands behind him and circled his arms around his brother’s back.  “It’s back.”

 

“You wouldn’t deny me?” Zei asked ignoring Arin’s excitement.  “If I wanted more?”

 

Laying his cheek against the nest of raven waves, Arin smiled.  “Probably not.”

 

Zei pushed himself away from Arin’s chest and looked at him with disbelief and confusion.   Loathed to fully release him, Arin gently closed his hands around Zei’s arms, holding him within arm’s reach. 

 

“But it’s not what you want,” Zei lamented.

 

“It’s not what I’d prefer, in general, _En_ ,” he corrected softly, unable to muster more than a hoarse whisper.  “But with you, if that was what you truly wanted…” he shrugged dismissingly, as though the question hadn’t born asking in the first place.  “Zei, you’re my brother… how did you put it?… the other half of my soul.  I love you more than anything in this world.  I can’t think of anything that you could ever want from me that I would deny you.  Not a single thing.  Certainly not this.”

 

Zei opened his mouth to argue but Arin only shook his head.  “If this was all you ever wanted from me, all you ever needed from me to give you joy, I’d give it to you and count myself fortunate that you would ask for such a simple thing.”

 

Zei snapped his mouth shut and blinked in a mixture of disbelief and shock.  Renewed tears welled in his sore eyes and Arin could tell that they weren’t caused by the injury they’d suffered.  Arin’s simple admission had not only surprised him, but it had moved him deeply.  Those tears spilled over the rim of his lower lashes, tracing new streaks down his flushed cheeks, as he dropped his gaze and turned his face aside.

 

It didn’t take much effort to pull Zei back into his arms.  Zei settled into a comfortable position beside Arin and leaned his head against Arin’s chest.  “You would do the same for me if that was what I really wanted, wouldn’t you?” Arin asked.

 

“In a ‘eart beat,” came Zei’s immediate answer.

 

Arin looked down at him with a wry smirk.  “Even with that puritan upbringing of yours?” he teased and was relieved to hear his brother chuckle, even if it did crack at the very end of it.  “ _En_ , you’re shivering.”

 

“I know,” came the weak reply, noncommittal and evasive.

 

He carefully pushed Zei up.  Startled, Zei still didn’t resist, merely looking at Arin questioningly.  “I don’t like being so close to the door,” he explained.  With a small tug on Zei’s arm, they crawled back towards the wall where Zei had been laying when Arin had first awakened him.  The straw still held the faint impression of his body.

 

Arin positioned himself with his back against the wall and extended his hand out to Zei, inviting him back into the haven of his arms.  Hesitantly, Zei put his hand into his brother’s, his expression unreadable even to Arin who usually knew how to read it.  Their position was more natural now that they could place themselves comfortably against each other.  Zei’s back was against Arin’s chest, his head pillowed against his shoulder.  Both arms were curled around the arm Arin held across Zei’s chest, pressing it close to him, Arin’s hand just over Zei’s heart. 

 

Zei was still shivering slightly.  Arin found his hand going to Zei’s hair, threading his fingers through the unruly waves in slow, gentle strokes, hoping to soothe him, to ease his trembling.  Zei leaned into the touch with a small sigh of contentment and let his eyes drift closed. 

 

“Zei?” he called softly.  He wasn’t able to affect anything more forceful than a whisper.

 

“Mmmm…?” came the slow response.  His eyes drifted open but he didn’t turn his head.

 

“What _do_ you want from me?  From us?”

 

Zei was silent for a moment as he seemed to ponder the question or maybe it was his answer.  “I want,” he started, his voice sounding almost reverent in the way he whispered back.  “I want what we’ve always ‘ad.  I don’ want to t’ink about dhe meaning of every touch we share.  I want to be able to sleep in each odher’s warmt’ like we did when we were younger.  I’ve always been ‘appy with dhat.  I don’ need any more from you dhan what you’ve always given me.”

 

Arin plucked a piece of straw from Zei’s hair and tossed it aside then coiled a silky strand around his finger.  The inky lock formed a perfect ringlet, clinging to Arin’s finger like a living thing.  _I wonder if his son will inherit this hair,_ he mused.  Most likely.  They’d been told that Zei was a mirror of his father, eyes, hair, face, height, and even build.  The only difference anyone had noticed was in the innocent wisdom in those ageless eyes. 

 

Eyes that were once again drifting closed as if in sleep.  And Arin let him, content to just hold him.

 

How long they sat thus, Arin wasn’t really certain.  It didn’t feel as though it had been very long.  He was in no discomfort for having held himself in his position or for Zei’s weight upon his arm.  In truth, Zei’s weight was no burden at all.  It was comfortable and familiar and exactly as it had always been. 

 

He realized something as he looked down at his sleeping brother, the gentle slide of silk against his fingers.  No, not realized, for it was something that he had always known, something that he should never have doubted.  Still, the knowledge came over him in slow waves until he was completely submerged and yet, buoyant.  Despite what had happened in that dark, seedy dungeon, the events, which had so uprooted Zei’s center, nothing had really changed between them. 

 

He loved Zei no differently now for having felt his kiss and the heat of his flesh, than he did then, when all he’d known was his company.  If anything had change, it was the depth to which that love now ran, not the nature of it. 

 

He freed another twig of straw from the web of Zei’s fine blue-black hair and tossed it aside.  As he went to retrieve yet another, he noticed that once again, Zei’s eyes were open.  He was staring ahead, his expression pensive.

 

“What are you thinking about?” Arin asked.  He knew he really shouldn’t be talking so much, not if he didn’t want to risk permanent damage to his voice, but he needed the reassurance of another voice.

 

A small smile pulled one corner of Zei’s mouth, wistful but happy.  “I was t’inking about dhe night we made our pact,” he replied.  “I was so certain dhat you’d made dhe worst mistake of your life.”

 

“I remember,” Arin said with a wistful smile of him own.  “You were so upset I was afraid you were going to make yourself sick.”

 

“Dhat night we fell asleep in each odher’s arms, and you ‘eld me like you t’ought I was going to shatter.”

 

“Are you?”

 

Zei didn’t answer.  He wasn’t shaking any more but he looked as fragile as he had before Arin had shaken him awake, as fragile as he had the night of which he’d just spoke.  Arin remembered that night like it was yesterday; was likely never to forget it.  So much had happened since then, had happened to them and between them, and yet had anything really changed?

 

He shifted out from beneath his brother and lay down at his back.  As he had that night, a decade ago, he reached out for Zei and pulled him against him, his brother’s sable head pillowed by Arin’s arm and his back against Arin’s side.  Zei’s hand came up and circled around the arm Arin held around him and Arin resisted the urge to draw him closer, suddenly unsure.

 

“You weren’t unsure dhat night,” Zei whispered. 

 

Arin could hear a hint of jest in his brother’s soft voice, though and he gave Zei’s back a wicked smirk.  “That night you hadn’t stuck your tongue in my mouth,” he shot back with a chuckle.

 

Zei turned his head slightly, though he couldn’t actually turn it far enough to see Arin’s face.  Still Arin could see one graceful black brow arch over his jet-black eye as he smirked.  “You started it,” he accused.

 

“I’ll finish it,” he threatened. 

 

Zei chuckled, rolling back over onto his side and Arin pulled him close to him.  He lay there content and listened as Zei’s breath grew deeper.  He stirred suddenly, a faint shiver passing through his shoulders, then settled again.  His breathing slowed and deepened and Arin knew he’d drifted off to sleep.  Arin let his head rest against his brother’s and closed his own eyes.

 

Minutes later, or so it felt, Zei stirred then came awake with a quick intake of breath.  Startled, wondering if a dream had frightened him—he had such vivid dreams since he’d come into his Gifts—Arin touched his shoulder to reassure him.  Zei’s hand closed over that hand not in gratitude but in warning.

 

A sound at the door brought them both upright.  Arin looked at Zei who only nodded to the unspoken question.  He’d sensed something and it was that which had awakened him.  The latch rattled as it was tried and proved locked, and Arin quickly scanned the room for something—anything that could be used as a weapon.  There was nothing—absolutely nothing—in the room but them. 

 

“Can you stand?” Arin whispered.

 

“I t’ink so,” came Zei’s quick, yet unconfident response.  “But my eyes.  Everyt’ing is still so blurry.”

 

A loud bang against the door made them both jump.  It was followed by the sound of the lock hitting the floor and the latch being raised.  Arin helped Zei to his feet, steadying him as he limped on swollen ankles, as the door to their prison was suddenly thrown open. 

 

A head poked into the room, capped with short, blond hair and wearing a no-nonsense scowl.  He looked right at them, and smiled.  “Cavalry’s here, boys,” he said. 

 

Zei slid to the floor, his legs suddenly numb with relief and Arin too overwhelmed to catch him.  “Boen?” he asked surprised, relieved, and dumbfounded all at once.  “How did you find us?”

 

 

The big man shrugged, “Damned if I know for sure.  Kinda creepy, if you ask me, but it was like we were led here.” He looked hard at them both, his sharp eyes noticing immediately the horrible wounds on Zei’s wrists.  He pushed away from the door and approached them, removing the pack on his back as he came.  “I told ya the cavalry’s here,” he said in response to Arin’s alarmed glance at the now unguarded door.  “They got the place secure, for the time bein’.  Let’s just not take all day.”

 

He put the pack on the floor by Zei’s knee and knelt beside it.  He took one of Zei’s hands and held it up, turning it over to examine the cuts and bruises which marred the slender surface.  He made a face of disgust as he then examined Zei’s other wrist.  He then cupped either side of Zei’s face in his massive hands and peered into Zei’s injured eyes.

 

“What the hell did they do to him?” he asked, shaking his head. 

 

Arin shrugged vaguely, not having to feign exhaustion too much.  “The usual interrogation tactics.  Chains and mind games.”  Boen looked up at the sound of Arin’s hoarse voice and raised a concerned brow.  “Blind him so he can’t see me than silence me so I can’t tell him that I’m there.  Temporary damage.”

 

“What the hell did they want?” Boen asked fishing through his pack for bandages, salve and his canteen.  He handed the latter to Arin who accepted it eagerly.

 

Arin drank deeply, reveling in the relief the lukewarm water offered to his raw throat.  “Who knows,” he answered handing the canteen to Zei with a reassuring glance.  “Doesn’t really matter, anyway.  We didn’t give them anything that they can really use, but it will be a while before they figure that out.”

 

Zei lowered the canteen, wiping at his mouth with the back of his hand.  He looked up at Arin and almost laughed, in spite of himself.  Arin squatted beside him and retrieved the canteen from Zei’s hand, while Boen set to work bandaging up Zei’s wrists.  Arin took another drink then set the canteen down beside him.  He carefully took Zei’s foot and removed one boot then the other, revealing ankles equally in need of Boen’s attention.

 

The big man cursed under his breath and fished through his pack for more bandages.  “He gonna be able to walk outta here?” he asked.

 

“Not a problem,” Zei assured him.  He tipped his head back and let Arin flush his burning eyes out with small amounts of water, sighing in profound relief.

 

When he was done, Boen sat back on his heels.  Zei made quick work of forcing his boots back on over the soft cushion of gauze, while Arin took one more gulp of water to ease his throat.  All that talking hadn’t helped it, to say the least, but he wouldn’t have done anything differently if he’d had it to do again.  Not a single thing.

 

“We gotta get movin’,” Boen informed them, slinging his pack back over his broad shoulders.  “I said they got the place secure, but it may not stay that way for long.”

 

Both Arin and Zei nodded in full agreement, Arin rising to his feet then offering a hand down to his brother.  Zei accepted it easily, letting Arin pull him to his feet.  When Arin slipped a hand around Zei’s back to support his hobbled steps, Zei leaned into him accepting that aid without a second thought.  Arin was relieved because he doubted Zei would have gotten very far without it.

 

Boen waited for them at the door, regarding them with concern.  “You all right, Zei?” the big man asked.

 

Arin looked at his brother who even at that close distance, had to squint to bring him into focus.  “How about it, En,” Arin repeated.  “You all right?” 

 

The smile Zei gave him was so subtle, Boen never even noticed.  But Arin saw it clearly and it warmed his heart.  “Yeah, I’m fine,” he answered.  “Just fine.”

 

 

 

The End


End file.
